Stratford High School is a secondary school in Houston, Texas, United States. The school is one of four high schools in the Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD), the district's westernmost secondary school (serving grades 9 through 12). Stratford High School serves several neighborhoods, including Westchester, Sherwood Oaks, Nottingham Forest, Nottingham West, Wilchester, Gaywood, Wilchester West, Yorkshire, Memorial Townhomes, Village on Memorial Townhomes, Memorial Way, Rustling Pines, Memorial Plaza, and the SBISD portions of Thornwood and Ashford Forest. In addition, several students from the surrounding area opt to transfer into Stratford from the areas surrounding Fleetwood and the Parkway neighborhoods along local arterial road Eldridge Parkway.[citation needed]

Stratford provides courses in the traditional academic subjects, as well as several foreign languages, technology, vocational education, athletics, and fine arts. Several different Advanced Placement (AP) courses are offered at Stratford.

In keeping with the theme of its mascot, Stratford's student newspaper is The Oracle while its yearbook is Mnemosyne.

Stratford first opened in the 1973-1974 school year though classes were held at Westchester High School until the students moved to the new Stratford campus in March 1974. It was built to relieve the overflow of students at the nearby Westchester High School. The overflow had been caused by of the rapid development of subdivisions like Yorkshire, Wilchester, and Nottingham. The school district quickly decided to open a new school when the student population at Westchester nearly tripled to 4,000. Prior to the opening of the Stratford facility, Stratford's students were housed in temporary buildings on the Westchester campus. The opening of Stratford was not completed on schedule due to construction delays, causing students to continue to languish in cramped quarters. The 1974 Freshman Class graduated in 1977 as the first four class of the school. The first class to graduate from Stratford was the 1975 Class.

In the 1980s, the population of Spring Branch Independent School District fell drastically. This was attributed to jobs lost to the oil bust that affected the Houston area. Many Houston families left or moved out of the upper, middle-class area, causing an underutilization of campus space. The school district voted to close four schools: Spring Branch High School, Westchester High School and two junior highs. Students from both high schools were sent to Memorial High School with most Westchester students going to Stratford. (Westchester students who attended Memorial Junior High were given the choice of attending either Memorial or Stratford.) Interestingly, students in the first mixed Stratford/Westchester graduating class of 1986 were given the choice of wearing their former Westchester High School color orange gown at graduation. Stratford, for many years, had a permanent display case dedicated to memorabilia from Westchester High School. In recent history, Stratford has maintained its enrollment at around 2000 students. Stratford also has improved its athletics programs recently, including a number of teams that are ranked at the state level and regularly advance to playoff rounds.

In 2004, the building which housed Stratford was found to have massive structural problems, including bricks falling out of the building exterior, which required immediate attention. The Stratford campus was closed, and the students were moved to the Westchester Academy for International Studies while repairs went on at the Stratford campus. This move posed a challenge because the Westchester facility could no longer handle a student body as large as Stratford's. Many noted the irony of the temporary move, noting that when Westchester was closed, many Westchester students were sent to Stratford, and now the situation had reversed itself. Stratford moved back into its regular facility in 2005.

In the 2006-2007 football season, the Spartans won the district title.[7]

In February 2008 the UIL announced that Stratford would be realigned to Class 4A, District 23 effective in the 2008-2009 school year. The new alignment affected not only football, but all UIL activities. The schools in the new district stretched from Richmond to Bay City and El Campo. Spring Branch ISD appealed the realignment, citing outrage at the loss of a 34-year-long rivalry with Memorial High School, as well as concern that Stratford would have the most travel of any Houston-area school. In the appeal hearing, the UIL ruled that Stratford would be allowed to remain in Class 5A, and the Spartans were assigned to District 18, where they faced the three other SBISD schools (including Memorial), three high schools from Alief ISD, and private school Strake Jesuit.[citation needed] Stratford was later reclassified as a 4A school, but still played Memorial in the annual "Green Out" football game. With the 2014 UIL reclassification and realignment, Stratford became 5A.[8]

In 1978, the Stratford Spartans won the 4A Texas State Championship with a perfect record of 15-0. They also were named the High School National Champion by many publications.

The Spartans Baseball program is one of the tops in Texas, placing numerous players into top college programs and 13 into the professional level, with 3 MLB players in history, Dean Crow, Chris James and Chance Sanford.

The University Interscholastic League’s biennial reclassification and realignment was unveiled on Monday February 1, 2010. As part of the realignment, Stratford moved to a 4A classification along with two other SBISD schools, Northbrook and Spring Woods.

Northbrook, Spring Woods and Stratford joined 17-4A with Brenham, Magnolia, Magnolia West, Montgomery and Waller in 2011. As of the 2013 school year, the Spartans moved, yet again, to 18-4A in another realignment released in early February 2012.

The school was ranked 168th in 2010, 168th in 2011, 700th in 2012, and 774th in 2013 in the U.S. by Newsweek.[11][12][13][14] Stratford was also named a Gold Medal School by U.S. News & World Report in 2012 and 2013, ranking 497th and 500th.[15][16] It was named a Silver Medal School by U.S. News & World Report in 2008 and 2009.

Stratford was named an Honor Roll School by the Texas Business & Education Coalition in 2008. The school was also given the Texas Education Agency Gold Performance Award in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. It was named a No Place for Hate School by the Anti-Defamation League in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Stratford was also given the College Readiness Award by the Texas ACT Council in 2009, 2010, and 2011.[17][18] The school was given the State Farm Good Neighbor Award in 2009 and 2010 for its community service.[11]

The school has gained "exemplary" status in the accountability ratings system by the Texas Education Agency in 2002. It has also gained "recognized" status in 2000, 2004, and 2010.[19][20][note 1]

Country Music singer Clint Black attended Stratford.[21] Stand-up comedian icon Bill Hicks attended Stratford.[22] Star knob champion Bobby Nash attended Stratford before going on to the University of North Texas to pursue his successful career. Indianapolis Colts quarterback, Andrew Luck, was valedictorian of the 2008 class at Stratford.[23] Former New England Patriots running back and current ESPN sports commentator, Craig James, was a member of the 1978 Class 4A State Champion Spartan football team.[24] His brother, Chris James, played baseball at Stratford before moving on to Blinn College and then to the professional level, playing many years in the MLB along with another Stratford great, Chance Sanford.[25] Author, marketing executive, and United Flight 93 September 11, 2001 victim, Lauren Grandcolas (née Catuzzi) was a graduate of Stratford.[26][27]Marc Ostrofsky ('79) is a New York Times Bestselling Author of "Get Rich Click!", Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the sale of Business.com, and has appeared on CNN, ABC's 20/20 and several times on ABC's "The View".[28][29][30][31] Brazilian author Renata Ventura graduated from Stratford in 2002. Documentary filmmaker Kevin Booth ('79) Showtime Network's "American Drug War." Former star quarterback for the University of Houston and Cincinnati Bengals David Klingler and brother Jimmy Klingler[32] also attended Stratford. 80s supermodel Kelly Emberg[33] is a 1978 graduate of Stratford High School.

This list is incomplete.Italicized public schools are not in the "full purpose" Houston city limits (See map) but have portions of Houston in their attendance boundary, while italicized private schools are in municipalities that are surrounded by Houston and/or are in unincorporated areas but have Houston postal addresses.